Archive for 8/1/10 - 9/1/10

That's the name of the most recent Play Date Cafe color challenge. The object being to use colors that don't appear to go together. I have to admit, the colors scared me a bit at first... but I went for it. Especially since I have had virtually no crafting time in the past two weeks. Combine that with the fact that I L-O-V-E the Waltzing Mouse Sketches, I absolutely HAD to indulge my habit :)

I really like the On My Couch series from PTI (actually, it's the companion set, Chair-ished) and wanted to ink them up badly.

Whew, these colors were hard for me to put together! I fought the urge to make pretty much everything white with just pops of color, as that's my typical tendency with colors I find more difficult to combine.

I had to "felt piece" the cute little chair - just love the texture it gives the chair.

Pretty straight forward blog title but that's about all my mind can handle right now :)

The latest FTL sketch is awesome and I knew the perfect set to use once I saw it. I saw the latest Embellish color challenge and decided to play along for the very first time! HOWEVER, I did not read all the way through the challenge instructions and did not use squares - DOH! Just not firing on all cylinders I tell ya!

Oh well, still love the colors!

I used the Year of Flowers - Lily of the Valley from PTI. So much fun to color! For the flowers I used V000, V12, V15 and for the leaves, YG11, YG14, YG17. For the black cardstock along the side, I dry embossed with the In Bloom impression plate from PTI.

One of the reasons Saturday makes me happy is the beginning of a brand new Just Us Girls challenge!

It's time again for a template challenge and Maria is our hostess-with-the-mostess this week. Great news is that Clear and Simple Stamps is our sponsor!!! The kind folks at CSS has offered a $25 gift certificate to the Clear and Simple Stamps store for one randomly chosen participant. Not only that, the player chosen as chic of the week will a free "Spooky Sweets" set! So there are two chances to win!!!

All you have to do to play along is create a template - CSS has free templates for you to use HERE on the sidebar of their blog.

The JUGS DT had the opportunity to play with the Spooky Sweets CSS set. I also used the Trick or Treat template, free from CSS.

Here's a close up of the basket. I tried my hand at making candies :) I used candy wafers and molds from A.C. Moores - it was fun and tasty! The bottom of the basket has Reese's pieces in separate small bags. I used polyfill to look like a bubbling cauldron :)

And my matching card. The DP is from DCWV.

If you already haven't, see the JUGS site for all the challenge deets. Don't forget to swing by the blogs of the other JUGS DT gals and show them a little love :) Their links are posted on the side bar of my blog. Stop by Jo Westfoot's blog as well - she's our August guest DT.

Thanks so much for playing along with Just Us Girls - we love seeing your creations and always appreciate your support!

Time for the Papertrey Blog Hop! Gonna make this a quick post unfortunately - seems like a busy time of year for a lot of folks and I'm no exception. Working 12 hour days at work but hoping to get back to a bit more normal schedule soon.

The challenge this month is to use a paper bag in the project. So I made a tri-fold card with a paper bag inside. I saw a tutorial on line HERE and thought it looked like a fun idea.

I used the colors from the most recent colourQ challenge - I haven't played along with any of my favorite challenges recently so I'm glad to at least play along with one :)

Thanks so much for stopping by!!! I appreciate your visits :) Happy hopping!

I used really fun, sparkly DP from My Mind's Eye. I actually had forgotten about this paper so it was great to be able to use up some of the 'stash. Top it off with a wonderful sentiment from Dawn McVey's signature greetings and we're good to go :)

If you already haven't, see the JUGS site for all the challenge deets. Don't forget to swing by the blogs of the other JUGS DT gals and show them a little love :) Their links are posted on the side bar of my blog. Also remember to stop by to see what the lovely and talented Jo Westfoot has created as our featured 'JUG' for August.

Sorry it's been so quiet here on the ol' blog this past week. It's been BUS-EH at work - I'm wiped! Hopefully I'll be back to some regular craftiness really soon :)

Thanks so much for playing along with Just Us Girls - we love seeing your creations and always appreciate your support! Have fun!!!!

Time for a new Just Us Girls technique challenge! Our talented and lovely Pam is hostess this week and she has challenged us to make a card or project representative of the Wild, Wild West! Yee Haw!!!

Pam chose this theme for our technique challenge in honor of the rodeo that our DT member, Alicia, is organizing. This is a very special rodeo; it's in memory of Alicia's son, Ethan, and the proceeds go to benefit neuroblastoma research. Here's the link to the website - http://www.ethansrodeo.com/ - hope you can take a moment to visit :)

In addition to our August featured designer,Jo Westfoot, Theresa Momber from Gina K Designs will be a guest designer joining JUGS this week. And, if that's not enough, she will also be donating one of her stamp sets called "Out West" to one lucky winner!!!!! Thank you Theresa! Make sure you play along for the chance to win!!!!!

The desert silhouette is from Stamp-n-Doodle, Desert Sunrise. I made mine into a sunset using my Copic markers (YR08, Y35, Y17, Y13). Stamp-n-Doodle has some great scenic images - check it out! I stamped the argyle pattern on terra cotta card stock in Versamark and cream. The rustic cream card stock is embossed using, yep, you guessed it, my PTI linen impression plate *happy sigh* :)

Here's a closer view of the image...

The inside...

I'm pretty happy with how this card turned out :) I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do for this challenge at first, but I did have a hankering to do a scene. Quick search of the internet and volia! Thank you Google! So glad I found Stamp-n-Doodle - I'll be going back to get a few more images - I have my eye on a cute little chickadee with Christmas cards in mind!

In other news, we've got another birthday gal over at JUGS - help us wish our lovely and talented Pam a very happy birthday. It's her special day on Monday. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Paaammmm, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! Wishing you a wonderful day Pam. Thanks so much for all that you for all of us at JUGS! Here's a card for our sweet Pam :)

If you already haven't, see the JUGS site for all the challenge deets. Don't forget to swing by the blogs of the other JUGS DT gals and show them a little love :) Their links are posted on the side bar of my blog. Please make sure and visit the blogs of our August featured designer, Jo Westfoot, and this week's guest designer, Theresa Momber.

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On a personal note, I thought I would share a few pics of our soon-to-be-finished screened in deck.
Here is our deck before...

And here it is, almost all done (just tiling and painting on the inside)...

Here's our tiling job so far, with mistakes fixed and dogs inspecting :) Just the cut pieces and grouting left to do.

Whew, that was quite the post! Thanks so much for playing along with Just Us Girls - we love seeing your creations and always appreciate your support! Thanks so much for stopping by 'cause I appreciate your support too!

Hey all. As this post airs, the hubby and I are on our way to Maine for a wedding.

For this particular occasion, I decided to give this card (posted previously HERE).

We also had a gift card and holder to go along with it. I wanted something a bit more package-like than a gift bag so I searched around to see if I had a gift box I could recycle. While digging around, I found this sweet little pillow box...

Cute, right? But, sadly, it was a bit dinged up. A little light bulb came on and I thought, "Hey, I think I can make one of these!". Here are the fruits of that labor;

The basic box was really pretty easy to make so I thought I'd share my process with y'all :) It went a little like this (ack, this is a bit scary!!!);

I started with a sheet of soft stone card stock from PTI. I scored at 5" and 10".

Then folded...

I made a quick little template for the ends. I started with a 5"x 1.25" rectangle of card stock.

Being the precise person I am, I measured the halfway point and scored to fold... then realized I could have just as easily folded it in half on the long axis... Ha! In any event, fold it in half lengthwise.

Here is is scored and folded length-wise.

Then folded again...

Then drew a little arc with the top of the arc toward the open edges of the fold.

I cut along the arc and unfolded...

...and used the template to create the arcs in the end of my pillow box for closures. I just lined up the top of the template with the top of the card stock and drew a soft line, two on both ends for a total of four.

This is what it looked like after trimming the excess away.

To make the ends fold in, I took my little template and used my embossing tool (you can use any other scoring implement) to score the card stock around the template. I just lined up the template with the previously cut arcs. Make sure the edge of the arc meets the edge of the underlying paper without crossing the creases of the length of the box or your flaps won't close cleanly (in this picture, mine is lined up a little too far toward my embossing tool - see where the right edge crosses the crease of the long edge of the box? I pulled it away from the embossing tool after the photo to get the edge off of the crease before I scored). Hope that bit makes sense (I'm not brave enough to attempt a video yet!).

After that's done, the edges can be gently folded in...

Then add sticky tape (I used Terrifically Tacky tape) to the 1 inch lip (Oh yeah, don't forget to angle the edges of that 1 inch section, again to help the box close and make it look tidy).

Here's the finished box (well, it still needed a bit more work, see below). If you wanted to stamp on it, it would be easiest to do this before assembly :) I didn't need to for this one.

The final box measures 5" wide by about 6.25-6.5" long, so it's pretty roomy.

So that's about it! Please feel free to contact me with any questions is any of this was not completely clear :) It's hard to put into text sometimes. Perhaps I'll be brave enough to make a video sometime, but likely not - LOL!